When you throw an item into the lowest level of lava from 1 block away and place a hopper underneath the lava and hoppers next to the lava, the item lands in the hopper but will play the burning sound and will bounce. It does not matter what Y coordinate you're at. This will sometimes work in survival or on the not-lowest block of lava. This will only sometimes work. I have tested this in 1.6.4 and the bug was there. This usually happens when you're facing west, but it also happens when you're facing other directions.
As of 1.21.2 Pre-Release 2, the bug is still there, but due to hopper changes, it requires lava between 1 and 2 blocks thick with a hopper underneath to occur.
Attachments
Comments 11
Same behavior reported for Bedrock Edition at MCPE-128569.
I think it is working as intended. If items were destroyed on contact with lava they would disappear and not be able to show the burning animation (like when touching cactus).
The reason you can see the burning animation and items can be picked up after touching lava, is that lava does only 4 damage/hit and items have 5 health. Universal damage immunity rules prevent the items from taking a second hit of damage from lava for 10 ticks.
Is this actually an issue in 1.9.1-pre3?